Far Right Roundup

Those of you with retirement plans heavily dependent on Crypto currency, private rail companies or just the growth in cheap aftershaves would do well to heed the following advice and divest immediately and pour your worth into crayons.

Yep, crayons. It appears the outer fringes of the British far right are going on a letter drive. With so many of the racial brethren behind bars these days, demand for the scrawled rants of other racists, terrorists, conspiracy theorists and cranks is outstripping supply.

Prisoners can’t write to one another you see, and when the mail bags are emptied at HMP’s around the country, our fallen and forgotten Fuhrers sit bereft like a Dickensian orphan with empty laps of nothing other than their own cold, steely tears.

Gone are the days when the British National Party (BNP) (remember them?) used to ensure their political prisoners got the latest Mothercare catalogue secreted inside a tatty copy of Spearhead. Nope, as the older hands left reminiscing on the doldrums of dated social media have declared, the ancient art of neo-Nazis writing a cheery missive laden with secret Nazi codes and phrases has passed.

So never mind the eighty odd grand collected for Patriotic Allotment (PA) / National Action activist Sam Melia, he really just wants to hear from you and of your inner most, dark thoughts. Melia has decided not to write his magnum opus.

Former BNP, For Britain and now British Democrats stalwart Julian Leppert of Waltham Abbey in Essex, is heading a campaign to make sure that as well as the large amount of filthy lucre Melia will inherit once he finishes doing his bird, he gets lots of birthday cards to remind him he won’t be home to blow the candles out on a lovely cake, baked for him by his loving missus, Laura.

Leppert, a former County Councillor is one of the old guard keeping the flame alive. When he was a postman in Redbridge he used to keep a number of ‘flames’ alive – and this included driving a car with a ‘Nazi’ number plate.

Whether Leppert plans to don his old postman’s uniform and hand-deliver his own card to Melia’s temporary address is a mystery. I guess it’s the premium rate paranoia alive and kicking in Patriotic Allotment at the behest of their leader that stops their members from writing to anyone. But Nazis shouldn’t worry; if any more of their members go to jail, they’ll finally have their white homeland after all.

Jack Renshaw Writes

Not to me, you understand. That’d be weird. No, the wannabe lady killer and paedophile is back after a prolonged period of silence and writing to his small army of friends and supporters. And there are a few of them. Renshaw has been, amongst others, writing to Bristol’s self-defined matriarch, Julie Lake.

Lake used to tip horses for both the BNP and National Front (NF), before being ousted from the NF during one of their many squabbles. Lake’s not done much politically since – other than organising a meeting in Bristol that was turned over by local antifascists.

Writing on social media, Lake brags she had a lovely Christmas card from Renshaw and another “lovely letter” from him more recently. Let’s hope he wasn’t asking her for her height and weight; he’s due out in 2039.

Tough Times in Prison

Contrary to popular (and understandable) belief, we do not wish any particular ill-will to far-right prisoners. For some of those imprisoned, other than to perhaps reinforce whatever prejudices and misunderstandings they have about ‘the system’ and life in general, it should also be a place and opportunity where they can (and some do) engage in efforts to deradicalise. Updates as to how the government are forging ahead with this idea are thin on the ground. The government has stripped staffing in prisons to the bone and all prisoners face long and debilitating hours confined to cells for as much as 23 hours per days.

Staffing shortages, even in deredicalisation and rehabilitation, mean many prisoners are simply doing their time without a satisfactory level of engagement. We are aware of a significant number of far-right extremists waiting to or trying to, engage with government backed programmes, like the ‘Healthy Identity’ programme, but remain frustrated by the pace and the availability of the project. For some it will simply be an inconvenience to endure and ensure they make license.

Others have voiced similar observations and assertions as some observers of efforts to engage with Islamic extremism, that the government’s PREVENT programme (for instance) may as well be renamed ‘Provoke’. One former far-right prisoner whose release was deemed dependent on completing the ‘Healthy Identity’ module was not even offered the programme, but was ushered out of custody having never engaged in any programmes.

Another far-right prisoner known to us has recently attempted suicide, and there are increasing reports of prisoners being denied by His Majesty’s Prison Service (HMPS) visits and contact with their partners and children. Whilst we understand there must be an element of controlled isolation due to the nature of both their crimes and stated beliefs, such extreme isolations simply reinforce their bitterness and sense of injustice. Their political views should not have or be the bearing as to whether they are good parents or not.